Poem
by Hayden G. Olivia
Summary: It all started when Sam lost her job.


**Hey everyone! Can't tell you how good it is to be back! I was recently checked out of the hospital, so I haven't been online in AGES…and this is my second one-shot! It's not a multi-chap 'cause I've got school until 2pm, then I have to stay at school as part of this Adventurers Club I was signed up for until 3:30—4pm, then I have to do homework, babysit my sister Dylan (even though she's 12 and TOTALLY CAPABLE of looking after herself), then shower, eat, get ready for a new school day and SLEEP. Since the Adventurers Club takes up Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, I only have Tuesday, Friday and SOMETIMES weekends to work on FF dot net (the Junior Adventurers go out on some weekends and I need to chaperone them during whatever activity they're doing and make sure they don't get lost, kidnapped or possibly eaten). While I was in the hospital, this idea came to me and I loved it.**

When my mother lost her job, she didn't act like most people. She didn't start hitting me and/or my dad, she didn't go to clubs and start drinking (unless her friends called and asked her over to a party; either way, she went with Dad every single time whenever she was asked to go and didn't get drunk), she never tried to hurt herself and she never cried over the fact that she was unemployed. One thing my mom would never do is cry. But what she did was that she lay down every night on the green grass in our large garden, hug me tightly and say, "I love you, Maxie, you know that, right?" And I would say, "Of course I do, Mom," and she would hold hands with me, my sister and my father and we would all pray to God for a better life and a new job for Mom…for an opportunity.

Opportunities didn't come easily, I knew, seeing my mom pray all the time over the next few months. Or maybe, like my friends Mary and Esther Crandall suggested, it was because my mom was only just opening up to God. Their dad, Jake Crandall, was a well-known pastor and always prayed to God, and their lives reflected on how much they believed and trusted Him: they were stinking rich and beautiful, intelligent and athletic, with perfect bodies, perfect grades and boys drooling over them all the time, and everybody loved them and/or wanted to be like them. The Crandalls were a respected family, mainly because they were always kind and helpful, so they were really easy to get along with. Sometimes I wonder how I, Ridgeway High School's "bad girl" and daughter of Samantha Michelle Benson and Fredward Ian Benson, the two "freaks" who used to be the co-host/technical producer of the formerly popular webshow _iCarly_, ever got to be friends with people like Mary and Esther.

Mary and Esther come from a _large_ family. They have four brothers—Paul, Thomas, Matthew and John—and two sisters—Naomi and Abigail—and they are the youngest in the set…well, so far. Apparently, a new boy, Malachi, will be arriving shortly. Luckily I don't have such a big family (it's just me, Mom, Dad and Avery, my self-centered older sister with an ego the size of Jupiter), because that means that Dad doesn't have to work _too_ hard and earn enough to feed eight (a soon to be nine) kids.

But when Mom lost her job, my dad had to pitch in the extra hours to his job as a computer engineer. The money was fine, but Dad _really_ wanted us to live in luxury; meaning that right now, _he_ had to live in a little less. When he got home from work with the rings under his eyes, I felt so bad for him, but every time I offered to give him a massage or get him some coffee he just told me to sit down and do my homework, even if I explained that that night I didn't _have_ any homework. If I continued to pester him, Avery would then snap, "Shut _up,_ Max! Can't you see that Dad's trying to _relax?_ God, you're _so_ annoying."

"Well, I'm sorry if loving my father is a sin, Avery," I usually retorted angrily. Other times I would just ignore her, squeeze Dad's hand and tell him that I loved him and that he was _extremely_ special to me. I don't think he listened to me all the time when I said that.

Eventually, opportunities did come flying along at rather slow speeds, but slipped out of our hands just as we reached out and grasped them. Dad was getting less sleep and Mom looked terribly guilty when she woke up at 7:30am and saw that Dad had already left, or when she walked upstairs to her bedroom at 10:30pm and realized that Dad wasn't coming home anytime soon.

I asked on a couple of occasions why we didn't just pack our bags and move, but even I knew it was a stupid question. I had just settled in as a freshman at Ridgeway High, and Avery was starting to take schoolwork seriously for her SATs at the end of the school year. Mom's former boss couldn't have picked a worse time than now to have her fired, in all honesty. Besides, I didn't want to leave Esther, Paul and Mary here whilst I left, thus making Ridgeway High totally lame for them, and Avery most _definitely_ didn't want to have to dump her boyfriend Michael and abandon her "friends" Tiffany and Nicole in order to move to come new place where everyone would see behind her "pretty" mask and realize what a b…what a _mutt_ she truly was.

Paul, Mary and Esther's triplet brother, takes after Pastor Crandall in so many ways. He's tall, with wavy and sometimes kind of messy blonde hair and bright blue eyes that remind me of Albus Dumbledore's (yeah, I read _Harry Potter_, so what?). He's a total nerd, but somehow, through Mary and Esther, we've managed to become (sort of) friends. He still finds me _highly_ annoying and "way too aggressive" and I think he's a dorky nub, but I'm the only person around who's actually _allowed_ to give him that label. Ask Mary-Lou Robinson's left leg if you don't believe me. (I can't believe she _still_ has that limp. And that she's_ still _blaming it on me that she tried to call Paul a dork and get away with it. I've forgiven her…except for the "evil eye exchange" we share now and again.)

I don't know how long my parents have been going against moving. Long enough for Avery to start agreeing with me and tell Mom and Dad that _we need to move._ But then suddenly, something happened that nobody could believe.

My mom got a job.

She got a call while Nikki and I were at school and while Dad was at work. According to Mom, her job is to be a food taster for some fancy new TV show called _Taste That!_. She wasn't going to be paid _millions_ for it, but like Mom said, it was a start. We were going down a new road, a fresh road. _Taste That!_ might not change _a lot_ about how we currently lived, but it helped us a little bit. Mom was going to be okay. Dad was going be okay. Our family was going to be okay.

But _Taste That!_ didn't do too well with the ratings. And once, Dad admitted to Mom that he hadn't watched an episode. Mom exploded and slapped him across the face so hard that Nikki could hear it from two rooms down. She ran into my room and asked me if I had heard it, and when I said I had we cradled close together, looking and feeling terrified. Would Mom come into our rooms next and hit us? Would she slap us so hard that it left a mark, like she did to Dad? Luckily, we were able to get through the night without being hurt. But the next morning, we noticed that Dad had left for work early again. He hadn't left early for work ever since Mom got her new job.

"We'll pray for you guys, I promise you that," said Esther, when I told her the story. "I'll have the whole Crandall family sit down and do it. We'll all pray for you. We know it's a trying time."

No offence to God or the Crandalls, but I don't think praying to Him helps all the time. It certainly didn't then. _Taste That!_ was cancelled after its first season and Mom kept blaming it on Dad, even when there was proof that we'd watched every single episode subsequent to the one that we'd missed out on. She didn't seem to care anymore. I heard more yelling and screaming in the night from their room, I heard slaps and punches and cries of pain, and eventually, I heard somebody opening and closing cupboards and drawers as quietly as possible. Since Mom didn't have any reason to want to leave the house, I knew that it was Dad, and since Mom is a heavy sleeper I knew she wouldn't have noticed and woken up. Honestly, sometimes Mom makes things way too easy.

"Daddy?" I whispered, entering the room to see Dad stuffing clothes into a large black suitcase with his name, FREDWARD I. BENSON, embroidered on it in fancy cursive lettering. "Why are you leaving?"

Dad stared at me for a moment, gazing into my brown eyes which were so similar to his own, looking at my oval-shaped face which resembled my grandmother's so much, them sizing me up as his daughter, Maxine Jennifer Benson. Then he kneeled down. I saw the large red mark on his cheek that never seemed to fade away, a couple bruises on his right arm and his now slightly crooked nose. His eyes had rings underneath; I knew it was due to lack of sleep and misery. "I love you," he whispered to me, smiling slightly. "I love your sister." He looked up at the bed where Mom was snoring peacefully. "And no matter how much of a crazy, scary freak she is, I love your mother. But…" Dad stopped there and sighed. "I don't think I can take it anymore."

I gave him my most reproachful look. "Come _on,_ Dad, you're not _really_ leaving, are you?" I said loudly, forgetting that Mom was sleeping so close to us. I regretted it immediately, because maybe if I'd spoken softly then he would have had more time to think about what he was doing, and I would have been able to persuade him to stay. But I had made the stupid decision of raising my voice as I spoke, and now I was forced to pay the price.

"Shh!" There was a look of panic in his eyes as he glanced at Mom to check if she was still sleeping. She shifted in her bed and blinked wearily, slowly beginning to wake up, murmuring to herself, "Freddie, why are you up?" in a slightly annoyed tone. Dad zipped up his suitcase, kissed my forehead, whispered, "I love you," once more and sprinted out of the house faster than I knew possible for dads to sprint. He was only wearing a vest, his boxers and slippers, but he left nonetheless.

And standing there, I realized he wasn't going to come back. He wasn't ever going to see me again…

"Maxie…what's going on…?" asked Mom, stretching and sitting up. "Why are you just standing by the door of my room?" She stood up and began to walk over to me. I knew that she was concerned, but I didn't care. Right now I hated my mother more than ever. This…this was all her fault. If she hadn't hurt Dad…

_"You,"_ I hissed at her, my voice surprisingly full of hatred. I never acted like this towards my mother. We usually talked things out together and made sure we understood each other. But right now, I didn't feel like "understanding" Sam Benson, who didn't seem to care at all for my father, even though he loved her: always had, still does and always would. Instead, she just used him as her punching bag, even though he had done nothing wrong. She tore him apart, little by little, until he was completely shattered. And she didn't even seem to care. "He…he's gone, Mom. Dad's…he's gone."

I'd never seen my mother cry—until then. She got on her knees and wept for what seemed like ages; then she finally stood up and went into the kitchen. She stayed there for a while, but I knew better than to check up on her. I heard sobbing from quite a while away, so I chose to go to bed and not disrupt her.

The months that followed were pure hell. Nobody felt comfortable around the other. Avery had never been so depressed by the news; she was so mad that she dyed her hair purple—_bright_ purple—and joined the emo crowd of kids at school, using all her time to write poems about how much life sucked for her. Avery had never felt worse. I wasn't doing too well in school: apparently, when my dad left, so did his brains…and I just so happened to have inherited his. My grades went plummeting down to all-low marks, and before I knew it almost everybody was calling me a complete and utter idiot… And I was starting to believe them. Mom was just depressed. Eventually she was able to get a job as a cashier, but she hated it and always came home with a miserable attitude. And one day, towards the end of my days as a high school freshman, my mom did something I'll never forget: she committed suicide.

Avery wasn't in the house—I had no idea where she was, probably at her friend Fang's house—and I was upstairs in my room, listening to music. Eventually I strolled downstairs, wanting some food, and I found my mom's bloody, dead body sprawled on the formerly clean, white kitchen floor. I called the police, an ambulance, Avery…and I tried my father's old number, praying it would work. It didn't. The police were able to find his new number, however, and as Avery and I stood, hugging each other, wishing for this all to be over, they told us he was in Washington. Washington, D.C. Where the president lived.

We had to move there. Freddie wasn't coming back here. I said goodbye to Esther and Mary, and the rest of the Crandalls. I even managed to give Paul a warm, farewell hug, without it eventually ending up giving him a Texas wedgie or an unnaturally sticky butt. "To be honest, I'm going to miss you, little squirt," said Paul, who now had permission to refer to me like that since he was now taller than me, which was incredible considering how short he was only four or five months ago. "Good luck in Washington. May the Lord be with you."

"Thanks, Paulette," I said, flashing him my first genuine smile in a while. "Same applies to you. I hope you'll survive without me."

When I went back to my nice, comfortable home in Miami for the last time and found something I'd never seen before: tucked underneath the kitchen table was a note that was stained with dry blood. I was surprised that the police hadn't picked it up earlier, but I decided their loss was now my gain. I picked up the note and saw that it was actually a poem.

_**I'm Sorry**__  
>by Samantha M. Benson<em>

_I just wanted to say I'm sorry  
>I made you all suffer through many times<br>I made you scream and shout  
>I didn't comfort you nearly as much as I should have<em>

_I'm sorry to my daughter Avery  
>For not being there when she needed me<br>I'm sorry for not attending your ballet recital  
>And I'm sorry I didn't share your love of fashion<em>

_I'm sorry to my second daughter Maxine  
>For not applauding her<br>When she kicked ass for the first time  
>And for not cheering her on all the other times<em>

_I'm sorry to my best friend Carly  
>For cutting off all connections with her<br>As soon as we graduated from high school  
>And that I was unable to attend her wedding<em>

_I'm sorry to the weirdo I call Gibby  
>For never seeing them as the friend he is<br>And that I laughed at him all the time  
>Especially when he needed help<em>

_I'm sorry to my brother-figure Spencer  
>For not getting closer to him<br>And always eating the ham in the fridge  
>Even when I knew it wasn't really mine<em>

_Most of all, I'm deeply sorry to my husband Freddie  
>For not appreciating him when he pulled through for our family<br>For treating him like dirt all the time  
>And for making him feel as though I didn't love him<em>

_I'm sorry to many people  
>For all the pain and misery I have caused to them<br>I just hope that someday they will forgive me  
>But until then, all I can say is<br>I'm sorry_

And the tears spilled from my eyes once again as I clutched the poem, so heartbreaking, depressing and raw, close to my heart…

**How was that for 2,753 words of total ANGST? I know, WAY too fast in some places and pointless in others, but I wanted to just get down with it since it's, like, 2:28am and I'm half asleep here, snoozing off every now and again. My aim was for this to be 4,000 words, but alas, exhaustion has won this battle once again… Anyway, please leave a review, and let it be positive or negative as you please. But if you're hoping to make it negative, make it CONSTRUCTIVE, I beg of you. And there MIGHT be a "sequel" to this. It's unlikely, but there just might be.**

**Toodles! :P**

**(Ugh, "toodles"…my saying that just proves how much I need to SLEEP!)**


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